KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – College Football’s best-known victory ritual reportedly began with a trainer’s promise about what he would do without clothes on. Before you get carried away into a romance-novel mindset, this origin story centers on what today’s college football fans would call a desperation crash-out moment.

In 1961, Alabama trainer Jim Goostree, a Tennessee graduate, allegedly told the team he would dance naked in the locker room if they ended a six-year winless run against the Vols. Alabama won. According to the legend of the cigar, Goostree couldn’t take it anymore. Losing to his alma mater over and over was living in his head rent-free. I spoke to Goostree’s son about the origin of this lore to find out exactly what he knows about the rivalry tradition.

Jim Goostree was a student-athlete and a letterman on the golf team at the University of Tennessee. He was also a trainer for the football team under General Neyland’s head trainer, Mickey O’Brien. 

After graduating from UT, Goostree moved to Clarksville and began a family while coaching high school sports. There he got a call from Alabama athletic director Hank Crisp, who had phoned O’Brien and asked for his best recommendation on hiring a new trainer at Alabama. In 1957, Goostree packed up his three children, all under the age of 3, and went to work for Crisp and head coach Ears Whitworth.

It wasn’t the best of times for the Crimson Tide when Goostree arrived in Tuscaloosa. His son explains that the family was nervous he had left the state of Tennessee just to get fired with Ears Whitworth’s losing staff at Alabama. 

Whitworth was fired. However, Paul “Bear” Bryant arrived as the new head coach and met with Goostree. As his son tells it, Bryant’s message was simple: “If I like you and you like me, you have a job here as long as you want it.”

According to his son, the Tennessee grad answered: “I’ve got half of that taken care of right now. Let’s go to work.”

That first year, two rushing touchdowns by Tennessee’s Billy Majors ultimately secured the win for the Volunteers in Knoxville during Bear Bryant’s inaugural season as Alabama’s head coach.   In 1959, the game ended in a 7–7 tie on October 17 at Legion Field in Birmingham. The next year, Tennessee won 20–7 on October 15 in Knoxville.

By 1961, Bryant was in his fourth season, and desperation was starting to sink in among the Tide faithful. His first three teams had produced no championships. They also were winless against the Vols. The Alabama staff was on a mission to not lose to the team in Knoxville again. Goostree’s son told me that beating Tennessee was a bigger task than beating in-state rival Auburn. It had to happen. And so it goes, that year they smoked the first cigars and turned the Tide. Coach Bryant was building the program on a punishing defense, relentless conditioning and discipline. The defense, anchored by linebacker Lee Roy Jordan, allowed only 25 points all season. Quarterback Pat Trammell led an offense that never needed to be flashy.

Alabama went 11-0, beat Tennessee 34-3 to end the six-year winless streak, and finished with a 10-3 Sugar Bowl win over Arkansas. The season earned Bryant his first national championship at Alabama, the first of six, and the start of a dynasty. It also marked the first of many smoke-filled locker rooms on the Third Saturday in October. By legend, thanks to Goostree and Bryant, a cigar tradition was born.

Jimmy T. Goostree says his father bought the first cigars on consignment from a drugstore within walking distance of the coaches’ office, in the middle of campus near Moore Hall. His son remembers watching as a young boy when his father packed the cigars before trips to the team hotel in Bessemer. If Alabama won, Goostree gave them to Coach Bryant, who passed them around.

The bribe was legendary, but the cigars stayed quiet. His son says it was strictly a private ritual between players and coaches. It wasn’t a publicly known celebration.Tobacco wasn’t something anyone really discussed out loud, and no one at Alabama had any idea it would become a known tradition.

To the Goostree family, it’s special that their father’s gesture, alongside Coach Bryant, became a ritual shared so publicly by two states. Even now, people call on the Third Saturday in October to say they’re lighting one up for his father. 

In 2022, after Alabama won 15 straight from 2007 to 2021, Tennessee won 52-49 on a last-second field goal. The cigars came out. Smoke was seen over the entire Knoxville skyline.

A cloud of cigar smoke wafts over a winning Neyland pic.twitter.com/yVJAKXeabS

— Jake Thompson (@Jthomp72) October 15, 2022

Former Tennessee running back Jabari Davis even has a non-profit organization that runs off the back of the cigar tradition. Inspired by his own experience in this SEC rivalry, The Legends of Tennessee provides replica victory cigars from its home base in Maryville, Tennessee. These hand-rolled cigars are custom-made for purchase and ship anywhere. According to Davis, he’s had a customer as far away as Long Beach, California.

Tight Ends Coach Alec Abeln explained how the intensity of this rivalry translates to the younger players who have yet to experience it

 Abeln told me:

“If you can’t get up for this one, you’re probably in the wrong building.”

Roughly 47% – 53 players on the Vols roster are newcomers (true freshmen and incoming transfers). A large portion of the team has never experienced an on-field snap against Alabama in this rivalry. TE coach Alec Abeln told me today what this game means inside the building. Abeln:… pic.twitter.com/wvx7aM7Qmy

— Ellie (@Ellie_Mai_) October 13, 2026

The 109th Meeting 

Now, after trading runs at passing the smoke around, No. 6 Alabama visits No. 14 Tennessee at Neyland Stadium. It is the 109th meeting between the schools, and Neyland is sold out for the 32nd consecutive game. Both teams are 5-1, and their one loss each reads like a mirror image. Alabama fell 20-17 to No. 2 Georgia, and the postgame argument was over a pass-interference flag that was not thrown. Tennessee lost 20-17 to Texas, its only ranked opponent so far.

From there, the two teams could not be more different. Tennessee ranks 15th nationally in rushing offense but 111th in passing, and running back DeSean Bishop has 678 yards and eight touchdowns. The Vols’ defense gives up 15.5 points a game. Alabama scores 44.2 a game and is coached by Kalen DeBoer, a close friend of Josh Heupel for more than 20 years.

The stakes reach past October. This is a game that could decide which team keeps a College Football Playoff chance, with Alabama needing the win to stay in the top 10. Tennessee has won the last two home meetings in the series. Alabama leads the series 61-40 with 7 ties. 

Coach Heupel was reserved on Monday to just call it another opportunity: 

“The Third Saturday in October is coming up, and it’s a great opportunity, We’re playing a really good football team. You look at how they’re playing three phases of the game and it’s a huge test for us, but it’s one we’re looking forward to.”

The Head Coach in Tuscaloosa said something similar about week 7.

“I’ve told the team, you can’t let Georgia beat us twice.”

Two States – Two Ballots

The rivalry’s other mirror is on the Nov. 3 ballot. Both states are replacing term-limited Republican governors, Alabama’s Kay Ivey and Tennessee’s Bill Lee, and both Republican nominees are sitting U.S. senators.

In Alabama, Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn coach, won the nomination. He faces Democrat Doug Jones, whom he beat in the 2020 Senate race. Democrats have questioned whether Tuberville meets the state’s seven-year residency rule, which he says is not an issue. Alabama has not elected a Democratic governor since 1998.

In Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn won the GOP nomination and faces Democrat Jerri Green, a Memphis city councilmember. It is the first all-woman partisan gubernatorial field in state history, and a Blackburn win would make her the state’s first elected woman governor.

Both states are one Saturday and one election from a new chapter. Only one sideline gets to light a cigar.

All the media questions and all the stats provided to reporters throughout the week amount to nothing. I didn’t even look at what was in my inbox.  The only narrative this week: Smoke ‘em if you got em’.